[purrin]

Yeah. You guys' comments are tempting me to be brutally honest about it. But no... must... exercise... self control...

 

[Sweden]

Don't be such a wimp purrin

 
Quote:

Yeah. You guys' comments are tempting me to be brutally honest about it. But no... must... exercise... self control...

 

 

[ianmedium]

purrin, you would be doing everyone a great favour if you told us your honest thoughts. It is not like this is a $100 amp that if it turned out to be no good you would not lose a great deal.

Many people on this forum rely upon honest thoughts so that we can take them all, good and bad and come to a balanced conclusion as to what to purchase or at the very least narrow down our search.

 

[sachu]

Just distortion to my ears and not nearly enough drive for all the talk it gets on this forum. I walked away fast from that amp. 
 

 

[ardilla]

There are something called vacuum tubes in that amp. They often have some kind of influence on the amplifiers performance, and their quality varies.....
 
Quote:

Just distortion to my ears and not nearly enough drive for all the talk it gets on this forum. I walked away fast from that amp. 
 

 

 

[Sweden]

Even with the stock tubes of a CS300 the LCD-3 sounded much better than from a Trafomatic Head One and and a Burson. If this is distortion, i want distortion. I guess it's comes down to preference which is to no surprise to anyone. I will do a comparison with the CS300 and Stacker II as soon as the amp arrives.
Quote:

There are something called vacuum tubes in that amp. They often have some kind of influence on the amplifiers performance, and their quality varies.....
 


 

 

 

[Anaxilus]

Those tubes would have to be near death to sound like that.  Thing is I've got similar feedback from people hearing a different Leben at different meets.  Could be they both were dying.  I actually did wonder if the thing was running off a battery with a low state of charge.  Who knows, maybe another will show up at the LA meet and I can confirm.  Let's also try to leave Burson out of this.  

 

[TheWuss]

so the Leben either sucks mightily, or is the greatest ampilfier out there, depending on who's listening to it.
 
 
i think i'll buy two. 

 
along with two LCD-3s.
that way i can do some "perception rolling" between rigs.
 

 

[cacatalysis]

There are also praises from different people listening to the Laben in meetings and at home in their own rigs.  These people also owned all kinds of phones and amps.  I am a very happy new owner of a leben CS300 (the lowest level of Leben).  I also have a WA22and a phoenix.  I have most of the good tubes for both the WA22 and Leben.  To my ears, Leben is the best among my amps for my HD800 and HE6 (only from speaker out on Leben, neither WA22 nor phoenix could drive it properly IMO).  I do not doubt that you have heard something you do not like,  I am actually very curious about what is so aweful that you have heard from Leben, so I can learn something I do not know.  Even with the stock tubes, there is nothing terrible to my ears.  With the right tubes, it sounds so much better.  Leben is very responsive to tube rolling.  I just tried a few amperex 12ax7s today, even with different versions of the same type of Amperex 12ax7 D-getters (first vs second version of the 50s production), HD800 sounds different from the Leben.  Wouldn't it be so wonderful if we can find a universally claimed best amp?  I have been thinking about getting a ECBA.  Unfortunately, there is also a split in opinion regarding to whether ECBA can drive the HD800 properly (check vecoheda(?)'s comments, he got an ECBA, and then bought a headroom max just for his HD800 because he thought ECBA did not drive the HD800 to his satisfaction).  For LCDs, the opinion of ECBA as a great amp is more consistent among different people.        

 

[lithe1]

Quote:

I received my LCD-3's back and everything looks tip top.  They replaced the drivers and the pads.  The pads are a lot softer and there doesn't seem to be the foam on the inside of the cup I remember being there.  These are a lot more comfortable to me - not as much clamping force it seems and I don't get that suction cup effect.  One thing is for sure, these sound fantastic coming out of my Apex Peak.  The veil appears to be gone.  It no longer sounds like artists are holding their hand in front of their mouth.  I did get a new graph as well and will try and post up my original and this new one later.

 
Same here.  Received my headphones back from Audez'e today and am listening to them for the first time now.  Although, I got a replacement unit, rather than the same headphones I first sent to Audez'e.  Now that I'm listening to my replacement headphones, I can definitely confirm that I had the veiled version, which eventually had both drivers cut out, completely, before I decided to send it in for warranty repair/replacement.  Anyway, I finally feel that these headphones are worth it -- after getting my third pair, in succession, of Audez'e headphones.

 

[n3rdling]

Now I wish I heard the Leben at the last meet.

 

[lithe1]

Just as a point of reference, I am attaching the frequency rate chart for the (veiled, cutout drivers) headphone (SN: 2312416) I sent in with the replacement (non-veiled, working) headphone (SN: 2312197) I received today.
 

 

 

[KingStyles]

Yes, I can totally see the difference between the 2 freq charts, 1 is in red ink and the other is in black.

Still waiting for audeze to get some more lcd3 in stock.

 

[Jian]

Quote:

Just as a point of reference, I am attaching the frequency rate chart for the (veiled, cutout drivers) headphone (SN: 2312416) I sent in with the replacement (non-veiled, working) headphone (SN: 2312197) I received today.
 

 

That's about right!
 

 

[Jian]

Quote:

There are also praises from different people listening to the Laben in meetings and at home in their own rigs.  These people also owned all kinds of phones and amps.  I am a very happy new owner of a leben CS300 (the lowest level of Leben).  I also have a WA22and a phoenix.  I have most of the good tubes for both the WA22 and Leben.  To my ears, Leben is the best among my amps for my HD800 and HE6 (only from speaker out on Leben, neither WA22 nor phoenix could drive it properly IMO).  I do not doubt that you have heard something you do not like,  I am actually very curious about what is so aweful that you have heard from Leben, so I can learn something I do not know.  Even with the stock tubes, there is nothing terrible to my ears.  With the right tubes, it sounds so much better.  Leben is very responsive to tube rolling.  I just tried a few amperex 12ax7s today, even with different versions of the same type of Amperex 12ax7 D-getters (first vs second version of the 50s production), HD800 sounds different from the Leben.  Wouldn't it be so wonderful if we can find a universally claimed best amp?  I have been thinking about getting a ECBA.  Unfortunately, there is also a split in opinion regarding to whether ECBA can drive the HD800 properly (check vecoheda(?)'s comments, he got an ECBA, and then bought a headroom max just for his HD800 because he thought ECBA did not drive the HD800 to his satisfaction).  For LCDs, the opinion of ECBA as a great amp is more consistent among different people.        

I agree. People are different, and their honest opinions are also different. Honest doesn't equal to fact and it seems the majority opinion here in headfi is that the leben is one of the best tube amp out there. Again it is not always necessary that the majority opinion is true either. So, IMO, the leben is one of the best, with very low distortion and lush musical sound, absolutely one of the best amps when driving HE6 through speaker tab, but not my first choice for LCD3.